Appendix R: Tombstone

Palace intrigue with peacemakers

Over on X, I ran a poll to determine which influential work I would cover here next. I thought Berserk would run away with it but, appropriately, Tombstone was faster on the draw and, with the recent passing of Val Kilmer, it seems like a good time to discuss this movie. Tombstone is one of my very favorite movies of all time. I first saw it in late adolescence during a period where I was falling back in love with the Western genre following my first playthrough of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption. When I first encountered Westerns, I was watching them with my father and John Wayne had been the gold standard of Western cinema. As a cynical 17 year-old though I sought out more morally gray Western media. This was my introduction to Clint Eastwood and the Dollars Trilogy, but it also lead me to watch a movie called Tombstone largely thanks to the impressive cast. I was familiar with the story of the gunfight at the O.K Corral due to the 1957 Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas film named for the incident and I had seen enough documentaries on the Wild West to know about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday, but the prospect of a movie that featured Val Kilmer, Kurt Russel, Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton as Doc Holiday and the Earp brothers respectively was too much for me to pass up as a budding movie buff. I was immediately blown away with the film and found it to be a refreshing change of pace from the usual portrayals of the Earps. The movie was filled with memorable lines, excellent performances and fantastic gunfights. Is it a historically accurate film? No, not in the strict sense. The narrative is all over the place when it comes to the actual historical events surrounding the Earp brothers’ time in Arizona, including the complete omission of the Earp brothers who didn’t participate in the gunfight. What it gets right though is the fact that the Earp brothers were not mythical heroes who came to Tombstone to tame the wild west. They were profiteers who got involved in law enforcement for their own financial interests who found themselves in violent conflict with another political faction. This is what domain play is all about.

Player characters in RPGs are the Earps and Doc Holiday. They are generally coming into a place to earn gold, notoriety, honor, etc which will result in upward mobility and control over a domain which will in turn grant them more of the resources they desire. This is generally understood by players, but the thing that so many forget is that many of these areas already have people mining these resources and any gains you make will detract from them. In the context of Tombstone, Sheriff Behan, Curly Bill, Ike Clanton and Johnny Ringo represent various factions in town. Behan is the incumbent Sheriff, Ike is part of an influential ranching family and he’s also associated with Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo as a member of The Cowboys. These men have power, they’re established and they want more power. The movie begins with The Cowboys avenging the death of two of their gang members at the hands of Mexican Federales. Suddenly, a bunch of famous interlopers arrive in town with the express goal of making money. Ringo and Doc Holiday have instant friction. Behan sees the Earps as a way to increase his own status before Wyatt becomes a romantic and political rival. Clanton and Curly Bill end up on the wrong side of the law, meaning Virgil and Morgan Earp. All of these conflicts continuously bump into each other as the Earps grab more power which culminates in two explosions of violence; the O.K. Corral and The Vengeance Ride. This is the trajectory of the western genre; two or more sides come into conflict with each other in a given confined space and their conflict will inevitably explode into violence. This is also a perfect formula for fantasy roleplaying.

When an adventuring party starts operating out of a settlement, their actions in and around it will have an impact, even at the lowest levels. The residence of the nearby village know about the dungeon just five miles outside of town. It’s the big spooky place they’re never supposed to go to and occasionally children, vagrants or passers-by get lost near there. By going there and clearing it out, the party breaks the back of the nearest threat to life and limb for these peasants. They’re heroes and their reputation as such will draw those looking to exploit their status or challenge them for it. Suddenly, the local lord and his retinue show up in town. He throws a banquet for them, begins to get closer and closer to them, and he starts to make inquiries about hiring them to handle special assignments from him. The lord’s battlemaster begins to grow jealous that he and his men aren’t being lauded like this new group is and he begins plotting against them. This is not that dissimilar from what happens in Tombstone and, if you swap out the dungeon for a bandit gang, the lord for a territorial governor and the battlemaster for a county sheriff, you have the ingredients of a good Western story. Fantasy and Westerns are highly compatible with each other. Tombstone ends in a series of gunfights, but it could just as easily end with pitched battle in a medieval countryside.

One of the things I pointed out as a strength of the movie Tombstone was the compelling performances by a number of high-profile actors. These performances really tie the movie together and make conversations feel as tense as gunfights. Believe it or not, this is replicable at your table. You won’t win any Oscars or turn yourself into a movie star, but you can do what the greats have always done; clearly understand what you want and pursue it in all circumstances. This is done masterfully in Tombstone. We see Wyatt Earp desperately trying to put his past behind him until the point where he could no longer do so and then his motivation shifts to the complete eradication of the men who killed his brother. Doc Holiday, the most iconic performance in the film, is a man who is painfully aware of how little time left he has on this Earth trying to grab the last little bits of pleasure from his remaining time. Every RPG character has intrinsic motivations that are discoverable on the character sheet. As I have said before, if a Fighter becomes a Lord, then his goal is to amass enough wealth and status to rule a domain. If a Priest becomes a High Priest or Patriarch, then his goal is to ascend the hierarchy of his church through dedicated service to his god. Just by remaining true to this motivation and letting it guide your actions, you will create conflicts that are the grist for compelling drama. This is the crux of faction play, the clash of motivations that boils over into violence. You don’t have to do Shakespeare, you don’t have to make eloquent monologues, all you need to do is understand your motivation and act accordingly. Your motivation may change like Wyatt Earp’s does, but you should pursue it doggedly.

Not only is Tombstone a great western, but a great resource for understanding faction-based conflict, character motivation and the inevitable escalation of tension to violence. It should be studied by players and GMs alike for these reasons. It is also a fantastic movie with endlessly quotable lines and memorable scenes. If you aren’t already saying “I’m your huckleberry,” “Say when,” “Well…bye,” or “You skin that smokewagon and see what happens,” on a daily basis then you’re missing out and should catch up with the rest of civilized society. Next Appendix R will be covering one of the only manga series I have enjoyed in my life, Kentaro Miura’s unparalleled classic Berserk.